


There Goes The Neighbourhood

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), race to the edge - Fandom
Genre: (first movie), A+ Parenting, Canon Disabled Character, DysFUNctional families, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Healing, Humor, Post-Canon, Pre-Het, and what to do when they suddenly become your neighbours, dragons!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22136500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Introducing Berk to peaceful coexistence with dragons isn’t easy. Hiccup makes a start.
Relationships: Astrid Hofferson & Stormfly, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Stoick the Vast, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson, Snotlout & Hookfang, Snotlout Jorgenson & Spitelout Jorgenson
Comments: 16
Kudos: 93





	There Goes The Neighbourhood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/gifts).



> For my personal 12 Fandoms of Christmas challenge, for Celeste. :)

Hiccup was only allowed to walk on his new foot for a few minutes at a time, the first few days. Gobber, who had a wealth of experience on the subject, was encouraging him to build up to his normal daily activities slowly. This was fine, because the stump was still very tender and Hiccup himself was pretty weak, on account of all that time lying there semi-unconscious being fed nothing more strengthening than mutton broth and honeyed tea. It was also not fine, because there was a distinct shortage of people to help settle dragons in to a place which had been actively hostile to them for nearly four centuries, and three of the people currently being heralded as experts were _Snotlout and the twins_.

Stoick had tried very hard to keep Hiccup in bed, where he could see him, until Hiccup made this argument. After it had sunk in, Hiccup mostly had the freedom to do what he wanted, for the very good reason that Stoick didn't want the twins or Snotlout - egged on by his awful father - laying waste to the island. Astrid could control them, but Astrid couldn't be in three places at once and even she had to sleep sometimes.

So the first thing Hiccup did was check that Gobber's patent saddle-compatible foot worked with Toothless’s saddle, and the second thing he did was go for a test flight, nice and low over the roofs, Stoick standing in the middle of the village square with his hands planted on his hips and glaring up at them. Toothless landed them neatly before the chief, and tilted his head to one side like a question.

Stoick let out an explosive grunt. “Very well,” he said, and stepped forward to scritch that spot on Toothless's neck that the dragon adored. “Take care of him, dragon.”

Toothless yipped.

“I can take care of myself, Dad!” Hiccup yelled, to Stoick's retreating back.

“Evidence suggests otherwise, son!” Stoick yelled, without turning around.

“Argh,” Hiccup said to Toothless. “Okay, boy. Let's go see what's happening.”

A quick flight over the village and environs showed that, on a structural level, very little had changed. The structures were mostly just draped with a few more dragons than before. The twins were visible from the air, holding forth to a group of Berkians; that was worrying, but Fishlegs was also there, so it was probably under control. Stoick had commented favourably on that Fishlegs boy's encyclopaedic knowledge of the beasties, and had told Hiccup that he'd given Fishlegs access to Hiccup's notes on dragons to act as a stop-gap until Hiccup himself was able to get up and about. So hopefully adults would listen to Fishlegs about dragons, _not_ the twins, who had been born under Loki's star and had been trouble since before they stared to crawl. At least Gobber and Stoick would listen to Fishlegs, and that was half the battle in Hiccup's experience.

The other half was Gothi. Hiccup stopped at her hut because someone flagged him down with a bedsheet.

“Hey, Ivan,” Hiccup said. “You know, you can just wave. Is Gothi okay?”

“Her hut is covered in dragons!” wailed Ivan, a good man with a herd of sheep but not always great with Berk's less ovine inhabitants.

“Terrible Terrors, yeah,” Hiccup said. “Clever little things, good migrating sense. I was actually wondering about sending le- you know, never mind.” He looked around and saw no evidence of Gothi. “Are they bothering her? Is she scared?” It seemed unlikely - Gothi had been the village wisewoman for as long as Stoick could remember, and nothing less than the Red Death was likely to intimidate her - but anything was possible. Said Hiccup Haddock the Third, riding a Night Fury.

“She hobbled away and locked herself in the house!”

“O-kay,” Hiccup said. “Well, this is a great fishing platform, they're probably not bothering her for food, and Gothi's never been scared of anything that I've noticed, so. Toothless, let's go say hi.”

They went over and knocked. A stick shot out of the door, narrowly missing Hiccup and Toothless, who both squeaked in indignation.

The door opened. Gothi appeared for just long enough to indicate through angry gestures and squiggles that while she was sorry she had almost got Hiccup with her stick (and he had better drink the draught she'd left with Gobber, eat regular nutritious small meals, sleep well and keep the stump clean, or Gothi would not be responsible for the consequences) he had better get that Ivan boy off her deck, or Gothi would see to it that Ivan would be very digestively upset for the next two days. And he could leave the dragons, incidentally, they were good company, and at her time of life she had no need for a dragon she could ride.

“O-kay,” Hiccup repeated. “Thank you, Gothi. Ivan? Gothi says it's all fine. Toothless and I will give you a lift down to ground leve-“

Ivan stepped nervously back from the approaching dragon and fell off the deck. Hiccup and Toothless plunged after him and levelled out about ten metres above the sea. Ivan was still screaming and clawing at Toothless's paws.

“Don't let it eat me, don't let it eat me!” he gibbered. “Oh my Thor. Oh, my Thor! Odin preserve me!”

Toothless grunted.

“If you’re going to be like that, I will drop you with Trader Johan and you can climb back up to the village,” Hiccup said irritably.

“Yes!” Ivan wailed. “Please! Anything!”

“Toothless, let him down gently,” Hiccup sighed, as they swooped towards Trader Johann, who screamed and dived behind the wheel of his ship as Toothless dropped Ivan onto the deck from about six inches up. “Hi, Johann!”

“Master Hiccup, is that - is that a _Night Fury_? You are in terrible danger!”

“Yes it is and no I'm not, my dad will explain everything!” Hiccup shouted over his shoulder, and leaned forward to get Toothless to arrow into the wind.

Adults, he was increasingly beginning to think, were idiots.

Mind you, teenagers were not that much better. He found Snotlout and Hookfang by the simple expedient of looking for the column of smoke, and discovered Snotlout running around throwing buckets of water at the top floor of his parents’ house and yelling in panic while Hookfang likewise panicked, which meant that he covered himself in flame. Toothless chased Hookfang into the sky where he could flame in relative peace, and then they doubled back to scoop up a water trough and dump it on Snotlout's smoking bedroom. Snotlout dived into the puddle of water remaining within the trough, and a cooler Hookfang came to roost shamefacedly on the central roof beam.

“So I was thinking maybe it's time to move out,” Snotlout said, tilting his helmet back into place. “Except I can't figure out who'd do the cooking.”

“Mm,” said Hiccup, who would have made a pretty good bread-making Viking, all things considered, but who had never seen Snotlout do anything in a kitchen except eat. “Gobber's pretty good at making things flameproof. Mostly flameproof. Bet he'd have some tips if you wanted to redecorate.”

“Maybe I like things open to the sky,” Snotlout snapped. “Now that I'm a warrior of the wind.”

“Uh-huh?” Hiccup said, keeping to himself the fact that he could literally hear Spitelout saying that - and probably also saying that it was a pity Hiccup had survived, and with a Night Fury on his side too, still, they were both crippled weren't they, and did Hiccup have any leadership qualities in those scrawny bones of his? Besides, Hiccup thought, Snotlout’s room would be horrible the moment the daily rain came on. “How's your dad taking to Hookfang?”

“Loves him, of course!” Snotlout said, throwing an arm around Hookfang's neck. But Hiccup had known him since they were both crawling at their mothers' feet, and Snotlout wasn't remotely hard to read. He was worried about Hookfang's welcome, and if forced to choose between reliable home cooking and Hookfang he would pick Hookfang, but he didn’t want to have to. “Loves him. Oh, yeah, a few little misunderstandings, but we're working on it!”

“I was thinking we might throw some kind of... welcome party,” Hiccup said, who hadn't been thinking this until three minutes ago but was pretty sure his dad would go along with it. “You and Hookfang would be amazing at the grilling. I bet you could do three whole sheep at once, no problem.”

And no Viking looks unkindly on something that'll feed them, he added to himself.

“Good idea. Yeah, Mum says she wants to try some of her fancy marinades next,” Snotlout said, more comfortably. “Also she says after twenty years in this house she is _finally_ warm.”

“Great! Awesome,” Hiccup said. Mrs Jorgenson was a powerful counterbalance against Mr Jorgenson, and was probably responsible for all three of Snotlout's better feelings. “Well, thanks for letting me stop by, Snotlout, I'm just going to check the twins aren't. Uh. Dropping each other in the ocean.”

He took off before Snotlout could say anything, and circled the town, looking for Astrid. No Deadly Nadder, no equally deadly blonde. The twins were now yelling at Fishlegs on the ground instead of on Barf and Belch's necks, but Barf and Belch had curled up and gone to sleep and Meatlug was chewing contentedly on a pile of rocks, plus most of the crowd had dispersed, so that was fine. Hiccup circled higher.

Toothless made a query noise at him.

“Astrid, buddy,” Hiccup said absently. “I'm looking for Astrid. Hey, can you find her?”

Toothless pointed them directly out to sea, where the - yes, the fishing fleet were coming in. Stormfly was beautifully camouflaged against the temporarily blue sky, but Hiccup could make out her movements, and the yellow of her crest.

“Nice one!” Hiccup said. “Let's go say hi.”

Toothless took them along to the fishing fleet at a gentle pace, except for the barrel roll he did when they were spotted and a cheer went up. Hiccup clutched at the saddle, since gripping with his knees was currently a rather more difficult option, and laughed shakily when Toothless brought them floating up next to Astrid and Stormfly, who cawed in a friendly kind of way.

“Nice to see you up and about,” Astrid called. “You look better for the fresh air. I can't believe Stoick let you out of his sight.”

“Yeah, well.” Hiccup patted Toothless's shoulder. “I have a bodyguard.”

Astrid laughed. “What do you think of Berk?”

“Loads more dragons! Some kind of worried people. I was thinking maybe if my dad will agree to organise a welcome feast... People like food. And we're going to need to do something about all the dragon defences, seeing as we don't need them... but we are going to need a better fire brigade.” Hiccup wished for a notebook and a bit of charcoal.

Astrid was nodding. “It's going to take people a while to get their heads around not needing the defences,” she warned.

“Yeah. Snotlout was telling me... What does your aunt think?”

Astrid, for dragon-related reasons, did not have parents. At some point she had had a stepdad, but he was a Berserker and had gone back to his people, such as they were these days (Astrid had refused to join him). She did, however, have an aunt who was a legendary dragon-fighting warrior.

“Auntie Freya says Stormfly's a useful beast but it's no good asking to have her in the house,” Astrid said. “One there's no room and two it gives Auntie the collywobbles.”

“I didn't think Vikings got the collywobbles.”

“Auntie has a polka-dot pattern on her left shoulder from an angry juvenile Nadder, so I'm amazed that's all she's got.” Astrid stretched. “Anyway, I built a lean-to for Stormfly, and I should be able to make it really weatherproof by winter. As for the rest of your list... I made the others help me beef up the fire protection we have got, but you're right, we need better structures in the first place. And a lot of people seem to believe that dragons only eat meat and they're worried about that, so I thought I'd take Stormfly out to show them that they actually like fish a whole lot better, mostly, and she led us to the biggest shoal I've seen in years, didn't you, girl?” Astrid levelled a doting smile at Stormfly. “Yes, you did. Yes you did. Because you are _so clever_.”

“Makes sense,” Hiccup said. “If she lives by fishing.”

“That's what I thought,” Astrid said. “Also, she was a big help with the nets. They were throwing fish for her to catch by the end.”

They were still throwing the odd fish. The fishermen had turned it into a competition between Toothless and Stormfly, which meant the humans' conversation was mostly conducted in shouts at convenient moments, and also that Toothless and Stormfly had started showing off. Someone threw a fish as high as they could from their precarious post right at the tip of the prow,and Toothless caught it mid-loop-the-loop.

“Wow,” Hiccup said, when Toothless levelled off. “Talk about striking a blow for friendship between dragons and humans. You hardly need me.”

Astrid smiled at Hiccup, which made his heart do backflips. “Yes, we do. No-one else living knows as much about dragons - not even Fishlegs. And no-one else comes up with crazy, stupid, oversized ideas that might just work like you do.”

Hiccup was turning pink, he knew it. “Yeah, well. If I can pull off keeping dragons on Berk, I'll know we're onto something.”

“We'll make it happen,” Astrid said casually. “I believe in us. In a, uh - in a team sense, obviously. Us. The team.”

“Yeah! Go team,” Hiccup said - and, in sneaking a glance at Astrid, discovered she was sneaking one at him.

They both looked away very quickly, and blushed the rest of the way back to Berk.


End file.
